I am a writer. I’m a writer because I like to write. It’s that simple. I’ve written many blogs that I’ve posted on this website, but I haven’t posted any for quite some time. Many reasons for that, but mainly because I chose to work on writing short stories and novels, and I all but forgot about the website. More recently, I had a serious (life threatening) medical issue that was totally unexpected. Obviously, I pulled through, but I’m told it was close call. Anyway, when I got back to my website, WordPress had made some significant changes and I’m no teck genius. So this post will be rather plain, without many of the bells and whistles that WordPress makes available to ‘enhance’ it. I choose to focus on writing.

So, having said all of that, what’s my dilemma? In a word, publishing. I’ve been there before. I self-published a book a few years ago (The White Limousine) and learned the hard way how difficult and time-consuming that it is. I certainly don’t regret the experience, but that experience made me think twice about doing it again, and I’ve written three novels since I self-published the first one. I loved the process and the work involved in writing them, but my dilemma is; do my novels sit unpublished on my shelf, or do I give publishing another go? I’ve had a few beta readers read my work and received positive reviews, but a few people that I know is one thing, but looking for a broader audience is quite another. There are of course, other routes to publishing.

One way is to find a mainstream agent or publisher, but good luck with that. Mainstream publishing houses won’t usually consider unknown authors, and so It’s the chicken and egg dilemma. I write crime fiction, and a tour through any bookstore reveals dozens of books of that genre. Many of the authors of those books are household names, and competing with them is very difficult.

Another route to publishing, is to submit a manuscript, or a part of one, to a second or third tier publishing house, and there are many of those out there. I recently submitted to one such publishing house and received a reply within a couple of weeks, that my manuscript had been accepted for publishing. Oh Joy! But they didn’t actually say that anyone had read it. Tempering my initial enthusiasm, I waited and did due diligence, which revealed a few hiccups. My delay in replying was followed by more prompts and e-mails and given a person who was to be my contact. Still not responding, a very lengthy contract was forwarded to me by e-mail. It would take a good lawyer considerable time to unravel it, but even a cursory look, gave me cause for concern. I replied to the publisher that I was no longer interested in pursuing publishing with their company.

The gist of the contract was, that for considerable sums of money, they would do all the work and I just needed to sit back and watch the dividends roll in. But the costs were all mine, and if there were profits, a good chunk of them would go to the publisher. It was a very ‘blue sky’ operation. The old adage that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is, certainly applies to publishing. I know an author who went this route (not the same publisher). He paid out over ten thousand dollars and ended up with boxes of unsold books. Marketing books is difficult enough for well-known authors. For those of us who have not yet been discovered it’s a grueling, uphill struggle. I prefer more of a partnership arrangement where I don’t lose control of the publishing process.

I’m really don’t know where to go from here, and welcome your thoughts and opinions.